Lives of the Lovelorn: Tony Stark and Pepper Potts

I've been putting off trying to write a "Lives of the Lovelorn" about Tony for quite a while, because there's simply too much material there to do it well with any sort of detail. This piece isn't even the entirety of his history with Pepper (or of his Silver Age history with Pepper). But it's what I've got references for on hand, and it includes some telling points about the way Tony views and approaches women, so here it is.

Bruce Wayne may have been billed as "playboy millionaire" but it was Tony Stark who really lived the life. Before the injury that created Iron Man, he was a hell of a man-about-town.



Back when he first became Iron Man--when the Iron Man armor was designed primarily to keep Tony's injured heart alive and beating--Tony had several good reasons not to become seriously involved with any woman--the danger he and anyone he loved would be in, the likelihood of his dying at any moment.



But he still dated--still kept up the playboy identity (I can't really call it a facade). Women in the sixties must have been particularly unobservant, because I know I'd be able to tell if a man I was close-dancing with was wearing inch-thick iron armor under his dress shirt, but as far as I know the issue never came up, and as long as Tony kept his shirt on his secret was safe. But you know, at least early on, I'm not sure how much of what Tony said had to do with his new life and how much was just continuing with the same lines he'd always given to women who wanted to get a little too close.



But that state of affairs was soon to change, with the introduction of secretary Pepper Potts and chauffeur Happy Hogan.



You'll notice that Pepper, stereotypically, has a huge crush on boss Tony. an affection which at this point is not returned.

What you may not notice is that Pepper, in her first and a number of subsequent appeances, is not supposed to be a paticularly attractive woman--she's got her hair up in a bun, has freckles, and wears a schoolmarm's wardrobe, high collar and all.* Tony was not even remotely interested in her.

Not that he was unaware of her interest in him--in fact, he's more than willing to take advantage of it:



Eventually Pepper has had enough of trying to get Tony to notice her--she concludes, rightly enough, that he's never going to pick up on her fine character, sense of humor, strong work ethic, or anything else--and she does what? That's right, she goes to an expert for help--at the beauty salon.






She has apparently gone clothes shopping as well. And it works. Now that she looks more like the glamour girls Tony prefers, he notices her (you'd think she'd just taken off her glasses and undone her hair right in front of him!). Happy, bless him, liked her just fine the way she was.

I can't totally blame Tony for this, though. It was obvious to anyone that he's a pretty shallow guy when it comes to women--Pepper herself picked up on this. The fact that she prefers the man who only likes her when she fits herself to his narrow definition of femininity to the man who likes her just the way she is has to say something about her and her level of self-esteem as well.

And while Pepper may have managed to get Tony to notice her, that's a far cry from actually getting a date with him, and she ends up with Happy in spite of it all, at least for that night.



But Pepper hasn't given up, and pretty soon she's interfering with Tony's other dates.



Tony, however, soon has other distractions--the Black Widow, in her first-ever appearance!



But that doesn't work out so well, and it's not too long before Tony, in spite of himself, is making moves on Pepper, much to Happy's consternation.



At the same time, however, Tony--basically a nice guy who wants the best for his friends--wants to help Happy out.



From now on, Tony's behavior with regard to Pepper follows a certain pattern. First, he realizes that (for the usual reasons) he can never really be with any woman.

He then tries to set her up with Happy.



But he has his doubts, based (at least in part) on his own self-interest.



Once Pepper is with Happy, Tony can't stand to see them together and does something to ruin Happy's chances.



And that's the last of my Iron Man/Pepper Potts resources, so that's the end of this discussion. What's interesting to me is that, even back in the sixties, Tony had a hard time honestly differentiating between his own interests and the greater good. His heart was in the right place--he wanted everyone to be happy--but his own needs tripped him up. I'm not sure that has ever really changed, although I'm sure he can identify more of these issues than he once could, and he may have become more adept at the self-deception. And since the whole Civil War thing is based in part on Tony's perception of what the greater good is, well, that's just interesting, is all. :)

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* I know that this can be hard to tell in an older comic. I used to have the same problem with older movies--a woman would come into a scene, dressed in such a way to (back when the film was made) identify her as a loose woman, or a wealthy woman, or a librarian-type, or whatever, and I wouldn't know it because as far as I could tell everyone in the movie was just wearing old-fashioned clothes.